As a teacher, I spend the entire academic year looking forward to
summer (my time off). But as a football fan, I spend the entire summer
looking forward to the upcoming NFL season. It's only June, and I
already find myself impatient for the games to get underway. It seems
as if it's been an eternity since the Patriots (the Patriots!) won
the Super Bowl.

And it seems like several eternities since the games of Week 2 in
the 2001 season were postponed. I dimly recall a lot of impassioned
arguments from people about whether the games should have been postponed
or not. Some maintained that playing football would be disgraceful;
some maintained that altering our sports schedule was just another
way of giving in to the terrorists. I can't remember whether I thought
the games should be played or not, but I'm sure I wanted them to be
played.

I wanted to think and read and argue about Eddie George (whose disappointing
season had only just begun) and Marshall Faulk and Ricky Williams,
but instead I was thinking about whether the games for Week 2 would
be cancelled. And once they were cancelled, I was wondering about
whether they would be made up.

By the time the season was back to normal, the Patriots had walloped
the Colts twice, the Titans were on a monumental losing streak, and
Marty Schottenheimer's Redskins had managed, despite all odds, to
strike an even sorrier pose than the discombobulated Cardinals and
quarterback-controversy-mired Cowboys.

Not only could I not have predicted any of it, but I wasn't really
able to appreciate it as it unfolded before my eyes. The NFL never
fails to deliver surprises that sneak up on the fans, but because
of 9/11, I can't help thinking that a lot of those surprises ended
up sneaking past us. In any event, a lot of them managed to sneak
past me. The postponement of the Week 2 games threw off the pacing
of the entire season for me. I was in a bit of a daze until the playoff
picture was pretty well developed. I'm not complaining about it or
trying to minimize the significance of the terrorist attacks by observing
this; I'm merely reaching a conclusion that I was too distracted to
reach at the time. Pacing is important in the NFL-to the players and
coaches as well as the fans. When the entire League gets a bye just
one week into the season, things get screwy.

But there's another kind of pacing that is perhaps just as important,
the pacing that we fans do in anticipation of kickoff on opening day.
We pace in different ways. Some of us frantically attempt to keep
up with the off-season moves of our favorite teams. We study salary
caps and potential trades and all sorts of esoterica. Then there are
those who are more historically minded. They have acquired the schedule
for the games of the 2002 season and are already looking over the
stats of the last five meetings between their favorite team and that
team's opponents through the course of the upcoming season. The vast
majority of us, however, pace not by looking backward, but by looking
ahead. We take our minds off the fact that football is still three
months away by making predictions (knowing full well that much of
what we base our predictions on will change between now and the time
the season begins).

Most of us realize how difficult it is to make predictions with any
degree of accuracy even in the middle of the season (when we've had
a chance to see all the teams in action and everyone is still alive
for the playoffs). Such predictions may be unreliable, but they are,
to some degree at least, informed.

Preseason predictions are a different animal. We make predictions
concerning brand new coaches, brand new offensive schemes, sometimes
(as in the case of Houston) even brand new teams. We predict good
things for a defense simply because the new defensive end who has
been brought in, according to all the scouts, will be a good fit (remember
Kevin Carter?).

My brother and I usually spend at least one afternoon every summer
looking over every game on the NFL schedule so as to predict the records
for all the teams. We're never even close, but that doesn't stop us.
It's an excuse to think about the NFL. What's really amusing to me
about our predictions is that we usually lose track of them. The paper
that we write on ends up being folded up into a beer coaster a few
weeks into the season and gets thrown out.

Last year, however, we had to make our predictions via email. So I
have a record of my predictions. If I had a brain in my head (or a
shred of pride), I would simply delete this little record of my own
criminal ineptitude as a prognosticator. But the way I see it, readers
of NFL columns will have ample opportunities to see 'expert' predictions
concerning the 2002 season in the months to come. Few of those experts,
however, will bother to include the predictions that they made last
summer. And that's a shame-because the predictions that we make in
the summer are worth a few laughs at the very least. Here's what I
expected from the 2001 season last June.

I'm an idiot; I know that.

AFC EAST

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

Indianapolis

11-5
/ 6-10

No.1

Miami Dolphins

10-6
/ 11-5

Buffalo Bills

6-10
/ 3-13

New England Patriots

5-11
/ 11-5

New York Jets

5-11
/ 10-6

AFC CENTRAL

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

Baltimore Ravens

14-2
/ 10-6

No.1

Tennessee Titans

13-3
/ 7-9

X

Pittsburgh Steelers

9-7
/ 13-3

Jacksonville Jaguars

6-10
/ 6-10

Cleveland Browns

3-13
/ 7-9

Cincinnati Bengals

2-14
/ 6-10

AFC WEST

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

Denver Broncos

12-4
/ 8-8

No.1

Oakland Raiders

12-4
/ 10-6

X

Kansas City Chiefs

12-4
/ 6-10

X

San Diego Chargers

6-10
/ 5-11

Seattle Seahawks

5-11
/ 9-7

NFC EAST

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

New York Giants

10-6
/ 7-9

No.1

Philadelphia Eagles

10-6
/ 11-5

X

Washington Redskins

7-9
/ 8-8

Dallas Cowboys

4-12
/ 5-11

Arizona Cardinals

2-14
/ 7-9

NFC CENTRAL

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

13-3
/ 9-7

No.1

Minnesota Vikings

11-5
/ 5-11

X

Detroit Lions

7-9
/ 2-14

Green Bay Packers

6-10
/ 12-4

Chicago Bears

5-11
/ 13-3

NFC WEST

PREDICTED/ACTUAL
FINISH

WILDCARD

New Orleans Saints

12-4
/ 7-9

No.1

St. Louis Rams

12-4
/ 14-2

X

San Francisco 49ers

8-8
/ 12-4

Atlanta Falcons

6-10
/ 7-9

Carolina Panthers

5-11
/ 1-15

Thank goodness for the Jaguars, the only team whose record actually
corresponded to my prediction. Of the 12 teams that I predicted to
make the playoffs, less than half actually went (the Raiders, Ravens,
Rams, Buccaneers, and Eagles). Most embarrassing is my worst-to-first
ratio. I had the Bears slated to finish last in the NFC Central (which
they won) and the Patriots slated to tie for last in the AFC East
(and we all know the story there).

So go ahead. Make your summer predictions if doing so helps get you
through the rest of the off-season. But don’t throw them away once
they’ve done their part to distract you. Hang onto them for next
year. And when you find yourself itching to think about football
next season, look over those predictions. They’re not just a way
to kill time; they’re an elaborate joke whose punchline is the season
as it actually plays out.